


The Chain

by GingerItt



Series: Roomies [8]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:50:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerItt/pseuds/GingerItt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>beyandambermafia prompted: I guess I'm in an angsty mood, but one where Mercedes and Sam fight so badly they end up breaking up. Both are completely miserable and end up having a heart to heart that lead to some smut!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chain

The thing that Mercedes doesn’t like about Sam’s gallery shows are the girls that have started showing up. She doesn’t realize it until Sam’s third gallery show but there are several girls that she is certain were at the first two and they stay exclusively in Sam’s display area. At first, it annoys her because they eat up a lot of his time, asking about his methods and materials and making it impossible for him to meet critics and buyers or other gallery owners. But then at some point, the tone of the conversation shifts. They get too close to her boyfriend, touching his arms and shoulders, their voices sweet and flirtatious but Sam seems to take no notice of it.

And then there’s how they treat her. The looks the give her, the catty retorts to everything she says, the way they glare at Sam’s hand at her waist. It takes all of two seconds for her to realize that they don’t think she deserves him. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t deserve her. But she’s the one he kisses softly when she wraps an arm around him and goes to bed with every night. So she tries to put it out of her mind.

————

The thing that Sam doesn’t like about Mercedes’ song writing partner is how intimately she knows her. Kendra is perfectly nice. She’s kind and soft-spoken with a talent as a producer that makes them all salivate after hearing the first demo of one of Mercedes’ songs. But when Mercedes is upset, she puts it all into her song writing book or calls Kendra and then they hole up in her studio until they have a new song. They have a definite chemistry that is unexplainable and Sam is jealous of it. 

He hates being that guy, feeling threatened by someone who isn’t even a threat and he knows that. He knows that Mercedes isn’t going to leave him for Kendra but just once he wishes that she came to him when she has worried or had a problem. Not that he wants to fix it for her (okay, he kind of does) but because he cares about her and genuinely wants to know.

————

‘I’m in the area, do you want me to bring you some lunch? <3’ Mercedes texts to Sam. Kendra’s place is only a short walk from Sam’s work. It’s a bright, crisp October day and Sam’s been working a lot. Halloween is just around the corner and lots of kids have been coming into the shop for costume inspiration.

Her phone vibrates with a reply from Sam. ‘Thanks baby but Mylie came by and we went to Quizno’s.’

She stops and stares at the message. Mylie. The bright blued haired girl with a seemingly unlimited supply of bralettes and sheer loose tank tops and a full sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. Out of all the girl’s in Sam’s unofficial fan club, Mylie was the most persistent. Her comments were biting and downright cruel but Sam never seemed to catch on. She doesn’t text back, she just swallows back the lump in her throat and continues on to Kendra’s apartment.

———

“Will you stop writing and come to bed?”

They’ve barely spoken all week and they are both at the end of their rope with each other. It’s late, past midnight and Mercedes is curled up in the recliner, scribbling away at this song inside her that she just can’t get right.

“What is your problem?” she asks, glaring at him. She was finally getting somewhere and he snapped her out of her zone. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Yeah, I should be, but I can’t sleep when you’re out here,” he growls, leaning against the wall in his boxers and t-shirt. “And something’s bothering you and it’s driving me crazy.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She continues writing, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.

“Will you put that thing down for two seconds and talk to me?” Sam yells. “If you have a problem with me you should tell me, not Kendra.”  
Mercedes looks up from the page and snorts. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of Kendra.”

“You’re damn right I’m jealous of Kendra! You tell her everything and I’m lucky if I can get the weather from you.” He comes into the room, standing over her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind seeing as you spend so much time with Mylie.” She closes her notebook and tosses it on the coffee table. “How many times this week did she just happen to turn up at the store right around the time you take your lunch break?”

He looks at her incredulously. “That’s why you’re pissed with me? Mylie? We’re just friends. We talk about my art and my shows and comic books. That’s it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Please. That girl wants in your pants and the same goes for her thirsty little friends.”

“They support my work.”

“Sam, they don’t give a crap about your work. All they see is a hot guy that they can stalk under the pretense of ‘supporting his artwork’.” She stands up, pushing past him. “Do even see how much those girls hate me?”

“They don’t hate you.”

“Oh, yeah? At your last show, your little buddy Mylie was looking at me like I was a leper asking for a hug.”

“Oh, my God, Mercedes! You’re being ridiculous. I have a friend. A friend that happens to be a girl.” He turns away from her going to the window.

“I don’t care if you have friends that are girls. I care that you are too dumb to see that they are panting after you like a bitch in heat.” She puts her hands on her hips and shoots daggers at him. Sam’s back tenses under his shirt and she watches him stand fully erect. 

“Did you just call me dumb?” he says in a soft voice. Her eyes fall shut as she realizes that how wrong she is for saying that. Sam is very sensitive about his intelligence and there’s really nothing she can do to come back from that. “Did you call me dumb?” he says again, more forcefully.

“Sam, I’m sor—”

“You know what, Mercedes? Save it. Save it for Kendra. I don’t need your ‘I’m sorrys’. You give her everything else, you can give them to her.”

“Talk to me—please, don’t—”

He turns to face her and sits heavily on the windowsill, arms still crossed over his chest. “I don’t know you.”

“Of course you know me—”

“No, I don’t. I ask you how you are and you don’t answer. You save it all for your songs and Kendra and I’m left with what?” His voice cracks and Mercedes feels tears form in her eyes. “I just want to be closer to you and when I try, you shut me down. I’m tired of trying and trying and trying and getting nothing. I love you so much but I don’t know you anymore.”

“Sam, I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I promise—”

“Don’t make a promise you have no intention of keeping, Mercy.” He gulps and stares down at the floor. “And if you are jealous of Mylie—”

“I’m not jealous of Mylie. I just don’t like her or her friends. I don’t like how they talk to me and whisper to each other about me—”

“—You’re being paranoid—” He moves towards her, wanting to take her in his arms and hold her but she backs away from him.

“They look at me like I don’t deserve you.” His mouth falls open because he has never heard anything more ridiculous in his life. On what planet does Mercedes not deserve him? “I knew going into this that I’d have to put up with girls like them but I never thought that you’d actually be friends with them. Or that I’d start to wonder if maybe they’re right.”

“What’re you saying?” he asks, reaching for her again. They are both crying now because they know what’s happening. It’s just that neither of them wants to be the one to say the words.

“I think we need some time apart, Sammy.” Her voice is barely above a whisper but it is a roar in Sam’s ears. 

He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and pulls her in, holding her tightly as a sob breaks from her lips. He kisses her hair, breathing in her scent. “I think you’re right.”

She claws at his back, not wanting to let go because once they do, it’s done. They are done. And while it’s is what is best thing for both of them, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

———-

Being apart from Sam is worse than Mercedes could have imagined. The past few weeks have been some of the most trying of her life and she’s doesn’t have Sam to help her through it. She’s recording, finally recording and she doesn’t have Sam to reassure her or rub her back as she tries to fall asleep. It’s a terrifying thing, baring her soul like she is not having the person she loves most at her side. She realizes that he never was at her side but not because he didn’t want to be, but because she wouldn’t let him. 

He moved into the living room, refusing to let Tina move out of Blaine’s room because he didn’t want to inconvenience her.

Sam’s not doing too well, either. He barely sleeps, opting instead to stare out the window or play video games on mute until he passes out from exhaustion. In his studio, he just stares at the boards, unable to do anything more than patterns out of pasta and beans. He stops shaving and before long, he has a pretty good beard going but he hates it because he knows that Mercedes hates it even though she doesn’t say anything.

He has a show that Mercedes doesn’t attend and he stands there as Mylie and her friends gush about his new pieces, pieces he knows are terrible. Then they start asking him about Mercedes. Mylie knows they broke up therefore they all know. And suddenly he is hearing and seeing everything Mercedes complained about. How they snort at her name and roll their eyes when he defends her and touch him even though he moves away from there hands. It makes him angry because they don’t know her or what happened between him or that he is just a responsible for their break up as she is. He moves away from them and ignores them for the rest of the night, opting instead to talk to other people who actually have money and are looking to buy.

The show ends somewhat successfully for him. He sells a macaroni version of Van Gogh’s starry night that he did months ago as an exercise and a smaller piece of Santana’s feet in her pointe shoes. With an extra five hundred dollars in his bank account, he races home as soon as he can because he needs her close.

———

“This whole thing sucks,” he says, opening his—her bedroom door and striding in. Mercedes looks up from her laptop, stunned. This is the longest sentence he’s spoken to her since that night and just the sound of his voice makes her ache.

“Yeah, it really does.” She’s sitting on the bed and closes her laptop, setting it on the nightstand.

“Do you hate not being together as much as I do?” He sits beside her, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“Yes,” she admits, scooting closer and resting her head on his shoulder. It was good to have him close again, their legs and arms touching. He rests a hand on her knee, fingers drawing little circles. How did he go so long without touching her? “I’ll do better about talking to you. Especially things about you. It wasn’t right that I told Kendra everything and you nothing. You weren’t asking for anything that I shouldn’t have already been doing.”

Sam shakes his head, “No. I shouldn’t have jumped on you about that. You don’t have to tell me everything you’re feeling when you’re feeling it. I shouldn’t ask that of you.”

Mercedes sighs and raises her head, looking up at him. “But if I had been honest about Mylie and those other girls, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

He leans in and kisses her forehead. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t see what you were talking about. But you have to know that I don’t want any one but you.”

Shifting to face him, she gives him a sad smile. “I guess I do know that. I’ve… I’ve loved you for a long time now and sometimes I have a hard time believing that we’re together and that you love me back.”

Sam’s heart throbbed at that. “Mercy, I love you and I never stopped. If Tina and Blaine hadn’t shoved us together—”

“Literally,” Mercedes interjects, chuckling.

He smiles and pulls her close, kissing the tip of her nose. It’s good to kiss her again even if it is just her nose. He keeps his hand on the back of her neck, pressing their foreheads together. “If they hadn’t done that, you would have been the one who got away. I might have moved on but a huge part of me was always going to be yours.”

She hums and reaches for his hand in his lap. “It would have been the same for me, too.” She tentatively presses their lips together and the effect is immediate.

It had been hard not to touch him for a few weeks but not kissing him had been painful. Sam’s lips are soft but strong against hers, working her mouth open slowly but surely. He comes to his knees and pushed her onto her back, hands gripping her waist tightly as he settles on top of her.

“Is this too much?” he asks, moving his lips down to her neck and shoulders, tugging the collar of her shirt to expose more of her skin.

“No,” she breathes, pulling his shirt up his back. “I’ve missed you so much. Everything—”

“God, your skin, Cedes…” he sighs as he works his hands up her shirt. Her hands come to his chest and he sits up, pulling his shirt off his body as she does the same with hers. “Want to touch you everywhere,” he says in her ear as her hands run down his chest to his stomach.

————

“Do you know if they’ve even spoken to each other since it happened?” Tina asks as they climb the stairs to their apartment. Her thighs are killing her from the ballroom dance class she had that afternoon and rehearsal that evening and she takes each step with a groan. Blaine has a bit more spring in his step. He’d only had two classes that day and followed by rehearsal with Tina.

“Other than ‘hey’ and ‘bye’, I don’t think so,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s been a three weeks. I kind of thought they’d work it out by now. They’re both so miserable. Last night, Sam was singing ‘The Chain’, by Ingrid Michaelson and I thought he’d lost his mind.”

He stops at the landing and fishes his keys out of his bag. Tina is barely half way up the stairs as he unlocks the door and freezes the moment it opens.

“What’s wrong?” Tina huffs as she continues the climb. “If we move next year, we’re getting a place with an elevator. I can’t handle—what the hell was that?” Blaine looks back at her, wide-eyed but smiling as two voices fill the corridor. Tina stops and stares past Blaine, down their hallway where the noises are coming from. “Well, I think—”

“Unnnggghhhhh, like that—Sam, more—”

“Like that? Oh God, you feel so good, Mercy—so perfect—”

Blaine shuts the door quickly and sprints down the stairs. “Come on, we’re giving them their privacy and going out for dinner.”

Tina sighs but grins as she follows after him. “If I wasn’t so happy for them I’d be annoyed that they didn’t shut their door.”

“We’ll deal with that later. For now, they are… reconciling and we are getting dim sum.”


End file.
